Sunsets and Short Stories

A lovely evening to linger outside on the terrace (fn1), stare at the sunset-lit skies, put myself on mute (fn2), and join a small, private videoconference featuring a friend (fn3) reading aloud some of her short stories.  For all its ills (literally), this pandemic has played host to some moments of beauty.

Her selections of late have been quarantine inspired, or tinged with post-apocalyptic threads.  Some grim and sobering themes.  Interestingly enough, on this particular evening, this particular day, one selection, "The Parade," had all of the children disappear into thin air.

Resonant.  Art imitating my life this Friday.

But as the sun sets, so it rises on a new day.  Here's hoping that for everyone that knowledge stays top of mind and ever present, even when outside it seems dark.

Fn1: (after harvesting herbs to accent dinner)
Fn2: (to tune out the occasional background sirens and helicopters and building mechanicals, and avoid their interrupting the reading)
Fn3: (who will be heading off in the Fall to earn her masters in creative writing)

Nurturing What I Can

Not everything is within my control to nurture and care for, much as I might want it to be otherwise.  So, then, I will focus on nurturing what I can.

And accept that The Project will take a little longer than I had hoped.

Juneteenth 2020

155 years ago the news of emancipation reached the enslaved of Galveston, Texas, slowly, months after the Civil War had formally ended - but it did reach them - the last ones to taste freedom.

Some events unfold as if they're barely even happening, like a snail making its way across a planter - how slowly only becomes clear in full context; a snail’s pace is even more glacial when the snail is itty bitty, teeny tiny.  Though up close, the pace of progress might appear just fine - only from afar does it become clear that something that should have been a no brainer, should have been accomplished long before, has languished too long.

And so, 155 years after legal emancipation of all, there is STILL work being done, still more to be done.  Juneteenth marked only the beginning date.  And the Black Lives Matter movement is only the latest incarnation of reformers trying to move the ball farther down the field.

The photos and video were compiled over the last couple of weeks, including on a rare very early morning foray into the park.  We still have COVID in this city; I am not yet ready to join the crowds for any Juneteenth observances today.  But two years ago I visited the African Burial Ground National Monument downtown for the first time, with its monument meant to evoke the Middle Passage - a compact site, but well designed.

Tale of Two Foods

Warning ⚠️- what follows may be a bit controversial, maybe unintentionally triggering for some.

First, the after: Tasty brown rice bowl of soft boiled egg, carrots, tender pumpkin shoots, dressed with an improvised garlicky nuoc mam.  Yummy, healthy, non-controversial. 

Then, the before: Where does one get pumpkin shoots in NYC, you ask? Um, yes - I had noticed some unfamiliar looking, but quite vigorous and very juicy sprouts emerging from ... the compost bin.

Yes, I ate from the compost bin (not sure whether that is better or worse than eating from the garbage can - and I apologize to folks who have had to do it, not by choice). 

On digging to investigate, turns out they were emerging from last Halloween’s decorative pumpkin - originally destined for a Thanksgiving pie, but never made it with the busyness of the holiday season, and it went bad, and was relegated in whole to the compost bin...

So, a Google search later, apparently all parts of a pumpkin plant are edible; indeed, the leaves and shoots are delicacies in some cultures. I tried a little leaf tip, and it was mild and nice, and sooo ... rice bowl.  And, and - I don't actually LIKE eating roasted squash seeds in their shells, and it's such a pain in the butt to shell them - so now, maybe I will just save the seeds and sprout them for shoots to eat! Lightbulb moment!

Contrast the little pumpkin shoots with the “Compost Cookie” from Milk Bar ...

...in this period of work from home, Zoom snack hours have become the way to maintain office morale, and that little individually wrapped cookie arrived with its comrades by messenger in its pretty hot pink trimmed tin box, as perfectly corporate as corporate could be - all sweetness and sugar and empty carbs, devoid of nutritional value, fluffiness and emptiness and lightness, like nothing is amiss at all in the world. 

The two ends of the spectrum of my current diet.

Mind Over Matter and Metaphorical Carrots

Some actions must be done even in spite of a deep aversion, a visceral dislike, maybe even a passionate hate.  Then there are actions that, in addition, provoke a physical revulsion, a physiological reaction that might manifest as illness - like triggering the involuntary vomit reflex upon just the thought of the act.  Completing the hated tasks in the former category is just mind over matter.  The hated tasks that trigger a physiological reaction of the latter category might require assistance from another person, so as to squelch the defensive bodily response brought on by the mere thought of the thing to come - the other person helps by introducing the element of surprise; no time to have an adverse reaction because you didn’t know it was coming.  But a dilemma arises when dreaded tasks involving your own physical self that should be simply mind over matter must be self performed, and cannot be outsourced to anyone else (or the someone else - won’t throw said person under the bus with an identification - is unwilling to help) - then the self resists physically, the limbs and appendages refuse to execute the task, and must be rendered into submission with all manner of pep talks and self-bargaining, with appeasement, with incentives, with engineering and body positioning, self trickery, self bribery....

Seeing skin break has never not made me squeamish - others' skin, most definitely my own skin.  This deep aversion has affected my life.  It is one of the reasons I never became a doctor, in spite of my parents' deepest hopes and the opportunity to attend one of the best science-focused high schools in the country.   It is why I cannot watch probably half of the movies that have come out over the past three decades - too much violence and gore and inevitable breakage of skin, and limbs, and skulls.

So learning to self administer injections for The Project has been a process and journey.  And I just cleared another hurdle - victory over a long, large diameter, intramuscular needle - yay me!  Okay, so the needle was not as long as it might have been - a bit of internet research and self advocacy and persuasion over some kind nurses yielded a prescription for 1 inch needles rather than 1 1/2 inch ones.  They were smaller gauge, though, and a larger diameter than any I have used before.  And the intramuscular rather than subcutaneous application - at an awkward angle to boot - still lots of psychological hurdles to overcome.  It took a long time to psych myself up, and lots of repeat YouTube video viewings.  I blew past the midnight deadline and finally managed near 5am.  But I did it!  And it wasn't nearly as painful as I feared.  The anxiety was worse than the deed.  Something to draw back on when next I think I "can't" do something.  People have been through far worse and survived and conquered (Aron Ralston, the hiker who self amputated his forearm and hiked back out to civilization is the epitome of that).

Anyway, since I was already awake at that ungodly early hour, I rewarded myself by making a visit to my beloved park, where I hadn't been since about mid-March, right before the stay at home mandate.  The park was just lovely.

Dogwood, I think.  Somehow in all these years, I never noticed it’s leaves are variegated.

After missing practically all of Spring, it was so nice to walk leisurely through, with lots of space for physical distancing, and see what’s growing.  A nice prize for overcoming that mental block.